


A Naïve and Sentimental Lover

by Prochytes



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-10-14 10:13:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10534371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prochytes/pseuds/Prochytes
Summary: How far would you go to save the world?





	

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for a defunct web-site in late 2005. Spoilers down to _Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince_ ; it takes no account of developments after that. Angst and dark themes.

Three nights now since they had shared a bed.

 

How quickly, after all, one grew accustomed to the unexpected. It was almost odd, now, to be able to read in peace. No skinny, surprisingly strong hands roaming across her skin like the Ancient Mariner, trapping her body into conversation. No need to suppress giggles, through pleasure’s ache, as the look of mingled rapture and barely mastered panic on his face reminded her of the expression he always wore when he was Keeping.

 

Now, reading-lights burned without indiscretion. As she perched, immersed in her reading, the immaculate sheets hugged the bed beneath her, snug as a jack-boot. The candid light showed them pristine, a snowy Utopia. Good place. No place.

 

Three nights.

 

*****

 

“Is it something they teach you?”

 

There were a number of things to which Harry looked forward on any return to Grimmauld Place. Ginny’s face was one of them. Ginny’s face suffused with the trademark crimson of the Weasley warpath was not.

 

“No, Ginny. Of course not. Er. Could you tell me what ‘it’ is, please?”

 

“The hero complex. The ‘I must face this thing alone’ groove. The Gospel According to Peter Parker. Was it something I was going to learn at Hogwarts next year? Or is it something you develop spontaneously, like hives?”

 

Harry now thought he knew the name of the game. No sign of the Snitch, though. “Ginny… Is this about you and me? About why we can’t…?”

 

“No, Harry. Just this once, it isn’t about you.” Ginny’s fury had abated, but now she looked forlorn, and on the verge of tears. “It’s about what you do to other people.”

 

“I…don’t understand.” No matter how many times you said that, it never sounded any better.

 

“I _think_ I can see why you don’t want us to be together. Because you think that you have to protect me. Although I don’t agree with it - because it’s _stupid_ -…”

 

“Ginny…”

 

“…I see your reasons. But Hermione isn’t you. What gives her the right to shut out Ron like that?”

 

The tears came. Harry was no stranger to the role of confidant; the logistics of moving Ginny to the kitchen, sitting her down, and procuring tissues without letting her feel abandoned while he did it were executed with the requisite adroitness. _Always attentive to a damsel in distress,_ would have been Hermione’s acid assessment. Right now, though, Ledaean approbation was not on Harry’s wish-list.

 

“Tell me what happened.”

 

“It was three days ago, just after you went off with Professor Lupin to chase down that rumour about the Horcrux. Tonks brought in a Death Eater. He was a wretched thing, half-mad. Tonks told me that he had imprisoned a Muggle family somewhere, a sacrifice for You-Know-Who, and wasn’t telling where he had stashed them. Tonks didn’t have any Veritasserum, and wasn’t that hopeful that she could get any quickly enough, but she needed somewhere to put him while she tried to rustle some up. She tied him, gagged him, and shoved him in the basement.”

 

Ginny took a gulp of water.

 

“Later that day, I heard someone crying out from the cellar. Hermione had gone down there a bit before, to give the Death-Eater food and water. I grabbed my wand, and ran down as fast I could. When I got down there, Ron and Hermione were in the basement, standing over the body of the Death Eater, who was in a world of hurt. Serves him right.

 

“Ron took me outside and told me what had happened. When Hermione walked into the room, the Death Eater jumped her and grabbed her wand. He must have been working away at slipping his ropes for hours, waiting for a chance like that. Hermione struggled with him, but he was too strong for her. Fortunately, that was when Ron ran in and hexed him. After that, he just gave up the ghost. He even spilled where he had been keeping the Muggles.”

 

She dabbed at her eyes.

 

“I thought that that was that. But then I started to see that something was up between Ron and Hermione. They weren’t speaking to one another; barely even gave a sign that they knew the other was there. Ron stopped… visiting Hermione’s room at night.”

 

Ginny flushed deeply, and hurried on.

 

“In the end, I just asked Ron straight out what was wrong, and he told me: Hermione had packed him in. The close call with the Death Eater had shaken her, he said. She didn’t want to run the risk of getting close to anyone, when she might die any day and be gone from him. She didn’t want to hurt Ron by leaving him. So she _broke_ him in _two_ by splitting up with him instead.”

 

 Ginny looked up.

 

“Like I said, I can put up with this sort of thing from the Boy Who Lived. Just about. But Ron and Hermione were on Cloud Nine when they hooked up at last, and I honestly, truly can’t see how someone as smart as she is can argue from the fact that she might die soon that she should behave as if she is dead already.”

 

 “Have you spoken to Hermione about any of this?”

 

“No. What would be the point? It’s never worked with you, after all.” Ginny bit her lip and looked away. “Sorry. Cheap shot. Besides, she’s barely been out her room for days, except at meals.”

 

“Maybe I should have a try with them.” Harry rose, and went to the door. “Are you OK?”

 

“Just about.” She sniffed. “You might want to take your wand, though. Ron hasn’t been in the best of moods.”

 

*****

 

There was a limit to how far the physiognomy of Ron Weasley could emulate an Easter Island statue. As Harry entered his friend’s room, though, the visage that turned towards his was pressing against that boundary.

 

“Hello, Harry, sit down.” Ron, still stony-faced, motioned him towards a seat. “Did you and Professor Lupin have any luck?”

 

“No. Dead end, I’m afraid.”

 

“That’s a shame.” Silence for a moment. “I suppose Ginny’s told you what happened.”

 

“She’s told me," Harry said, with deliberation and some emphasis, “what you told her.”

 

Ron threw his friend a sidelong glance, but held his counsel. Harry took the plunge.

 

“Ron… why do you think that you have to protect her?”

 

“Hermione? Well, that Death Eater might have killed her if I hadn’t…”

 

“Not Hermione. We both know that Hermione doesn’t need protecting. I meant Ginny.”

 

A ghost of a smile passed over Ron’s face. “Not much gets past you, does it Harry?”

 

“We’ve been through more than our fair share of mysteries, Ron. Let’s just say you get a nose for when things don’t add up. And you still haven’t answered my question. Why do you think that Ginny still needs protecting?”

 

“Why do you?”

 

“Fair point, I suppose.” Harry got up. “I’m going to speak to Hermione now.”

 

“I…” Ron looked away. “Have fun.”

 

*****

 

Helvander’s Eighteenth Apotropy was presenting her with a certain amount of difficulty. It struck her that a mind not wearied with having wrestled all the previous seventeen Apotropies into submission over the course of the last nine hours might have been better equipped to handle the strain. Perhaps she should get some rest, have a sleep.

 

Go to bed.

 

As she turned her eyes back to the page, the door opened.

 

“Hello, Harry. Any luck with the Horcrux?”

 

“Not yet. Hermione… you look exhausted. Take a break.”

 

“The world isn’t going to save itself, Harry.” Nevertheless, she shut the book and rubbed her eyes. Harry shuffled from foot to foot.

 

“I hear that things were… eventful here while I was away.”

 

Harry had sometimes wondered what a hollow laugh sounded like; now he knew. Hermione ran her hands through her hair. “Yes, I suppose you could put it like that.”

 

“Do you know what Ron’s been telling Ginny?”

 

“No. I’ve been busy. It must be something dreadful, though. She’s been looking daggers at me since… what happened, happened.”

 

“Ginny thinks that Death Eater jumped you when you brought him food. The close shave made you afraid of committing yourself to Ron, because you might die any day and break his heart. So you dumped him, and the two of you haven’t spoken since.”

 

Hermione’s face darkened. “That’s Ron all over. Making me out to be all high-minded and noble… everything _he_ wants to be able to think I am. _And_ he’s made it sound like _I_ dumped _him_. No wonder Ginny hates me.” She looked up at Harry. “Has he told you what really happened?”

 

“No. But I think that I can guess.”

 

Harry took off his glasses, and rubbed them.

 

"What Ginny told me made no sense. If Tonks left a Death Eater here, she’d make very sure that he couldn’t get free. There was no way he could have ‘slipped loose’. And you’re too smart to let him get close enough to grab your wand, even if he could.”

 

Hermione nodded. “Go on.”

 

“The Death Eater had taken a family hostage. Muggles, like your parents. Tonks was going to get Veritasserum, but there was no guarantee that she could find any in time. Someone decided that the Death Eater had to be made to talk. Even if the means were… unforgivable.”  

 

Harry replaced his glasses.

 

“What did you use, Hermione? The Imperius?”

 

“The Cruciatus. I thought that he might be able to fight the Imperius, you see. I’d forgotten about…” Hermione’s voice broke for a moment, “…about the screaming…”

 

“And Ron found you doing it.”

 

“Yes. Since then, he hasn’t touched me. It’s all he can do even to look at me.” She raised her head. “I’ve never made a secret of what I am, Harry. I jinxed Dumbledore’s Army without telling them. I put Rita Skeeta in a jar and blackmailed her after I let her out. I’m not strong or smart enough to put the world to rights by playing the game; sometimes, I have to cheat. Whatever the consequences.” She sighed, and rubbed her temples. “You can live with that. Ron can’t.”

 

Harry bit his lip. “He thinks the world of you, you know. Still.”

 

“I know. But that’s the problem. The Hermione in his head is better than I am, than I can let myself be. You can’t do much good when you’re teetering on someone else’s pedestal”

 

Hermione reached for her book.

 

“Thank you for coming, Harry. It does mean a lot to me. But this is something Ron has to work through, not you. And speaking of work, I really would like to finish this book tonight…”

 

“OK.” Harry paused at the door. “I hope that he manages it.”

 

“So do I.”

 

The door closed. Hermione returned to the text of Helvander.

 

_Let the adept seek no balm of companionship from the art magic, since the command of the worlds seen and unseen which is the thaumaturge’s prerogative must ever be an undertaking individual and self-willed. Magi, if together they would stand, must maintain ever a several singularity…”_

FINIS


End file.
